The air show here can often feel like aviation's World Cup, with makers
of jet fighters, commercial aircraft, helicopters and private planes
from around the globe vying for bigger-faster-stronger bragging rights.

But
the high price of oil has led to a new marketing approach this year,
and there is a ready audience for it, as fuel costs have hurt airlines
around the world, including Delta and American, which reported steep
losses Wednesday.

Manufacturers are trying to bolster their
green credentials by playing down the importance of speed and lauding
initiatives to reduce the environmental impact of flying, as well as
the cost.

Inside Boeing's exhibit, for example, the star
attraction is a 75-gallon tank of bright green algae, the potential
feeding ground for a jet fuel substitute.

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All over Farnborough
sit recycling bins, sponsored by Bombardier, declaring, ''A new planet,
a new plane,'' referring to its new CSeries jet, which it says uses 20
percent less fuel than its competitors.

Even the tail of the enormous double-decker Airbus A380 promises, ''A better environment inside and out.''

Sustainability is the new buzzword at Farnborough this year, and it is echoing as loud as the planes screaming by overhead.

''It's
a matter for survival,'' Giovanni Bisignani, director-general of the
International Air Transport Association, said Wednesday at an
environmental conference.

With global air traffic expected to
swell in coming years, government regulators, including the European
Commission, are applying pressure to make planes quieter, cleaner and
more efficient, and threatening penalties if they fall short.

''Our
customers are under hellish pressures to come up with improvements,''
said Tom Williams, an Airbus executive vice president.

There are
no cheap or easy solutions. Lighter materials, new fuels and other
innovations that promise to make planes more environmentally friendly
mean more expense and development time. That includes the billions that
engine makers are spending to develop new products.

All that
could make it hard for the manufacturers to offer the discounts that
their big customers have come to expect, potentially wiping out the
savings that such planes might offer.

''It's a bitter split,'' Williams said.

Bisignani
said the industry had been late in realizing that it had to do more to
stress its environmental credentials, leaving it open for attacks from
environmental groups and threats of new taxes from Europe and elsewhere.

Some
executives here said the criticisms were unfounded. ''Aviation should
not be treated as a pariah,'' Tony Tyler, chief executive of Cathay
Pacific, said at the environmental conference. ''Everybody understands
our obligations. Everyone is taking it very seriously.''

The new
focus this year is in sharp contrast to the Farnborough show in 2006,
when Boeing's technology experts insisted in staff meetings that it was
impossible to develop fuels that could substitute for the kerosene that
powers jets.

Now, Boeing is conducting tests with four airlines
- Virgin Atlantic, Japan Air Lines, Air New Zealand and Continental -
to see what may work best as an alternative fuel. British Airways,
meanwhile, has invited energy producers to bring it fuels that it will
test in laboratory conditions, its chief executive, Willie Walsh, said
here.

Corn-based ethanol is out of consideration because it freezes at high altitudes and does not provide the power a jet needs.

For
its part, Boeing wants a fuel that does not threaten the food supply,
taint water or require that land be cultivated, said Billy Glover,
Boeing's director of environmental performance.

Scott Carson,
chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, likens the industry's
quest for suitable biofuels to efforts to send a man to the moon. ''We
didn't know how to do that then; we don't know how to do this now,''
Carson said, in a video that runs continuously at Boeing's display.
But, he added, ''we'll do it, just like we did then.''

Development
efforts are ''so promising, and so close'' to developing a new biofuel
that could be derived from algae or other plant life, like Jatropha, a
tropical plant whose seeds are rich in oil, Carson said Tuesday.

New
fuels are just part of the effort. Engines are an important element,
since they can yield improvements in fuel economy and reductions in
carbon emissions. General Electric showed a new engine, developed with
a French partner, Safran, which it said should be ready in 2016.

Separately,
Pratt & Whitney unveiled its PW1000G, which has a geared-turbo fan
that some experts think is the wave of the future. The lower-spinning
fan uses less fuel, generates less heat and noise and releases less
nitrogen oxide than other engines.

GE does not yet have a buyer,
but the Pratt & Whitney engine will be featured on Bombardier's new
100-seat jet, the CSeries, which was announced in Farnborough on
Sunday. Bombardier, which also owns Learjet, halted development on
CSeries two years ago so it could focus on making it more efficient.

The
company claims the CSeries, set to go into service in 2013, will be 20
percent more fuel-efficient than comparable jets. Boeing makes a
similar claim for its larger 787 Dreamliner, set to be delivered to
customers starting next year.

Aircraft manufacturers are also
shifting away from traditional materials, like aluminum and steel, to
plastic composites made from carbon fiber, and metals like titanium.

But
demand from aircraft companies for these materials may well outstrip
supplies, said Philip Toy, who is managing director with the
restructuring firm AlixPartners of Southfield, Michigan. ''There are no
inexpensive substitutes for these materials right now,'' he said.

Boeing
is being deluged with requests from airlines and other customers for
tips on saving fuel. One move involved replacing the traditional brakes
on its 737 jets with carbon-fiber versions, saving 800 pounds, or 360
kilograms, per plane, Glover said.

But airlines need to think in
bigger terms when they design new aircraft, said Williams of Airbus.
His company is beginning to mull the shape of the next-generation A320,
which is not due until around 2017.

''Do you do an interim
solution?'' he said, based on the plane's current design, ''or a final
solution'' that could dramatically save fuel, but require
more-extensive testing to win government certification.